


turntables

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tonooka asks once only. Mizuno tells him the rest.





	turntables

**Author's Note:**

> warnings/notes:  
> \- fudging tonooka's entire name  
> \- tipsy/drunk charas  
> \- brief mention of homophobia from mizuno's parents  
> \- covers plot points from the clockwork and kniroun event stories  
> \- tonooka is still not the nicest person, but from his own perspective he was justified (?)

“Only if you don’t mind,” Mizuno says, his fingers tightening over the sheaf of papers. There’s a nervous edge to his smile that years of public image training haven’t managed to fix. Tonooka can sniff out social awkwardness from a mile away – it’s what gets him up ladders, into offices too large for his job history – and Mizuno reeks of naivete and insecurity. “I think we could work well together, as a – as a team.”

Their department has a protocol for this sort of offer. The papers are starting to tremble in Mizuno’s grasp; courtesy dictates that Tonooka should accept them temporarily, even if he is planning to offload them onto another person’s desk later.

Instead, he flicks Mizuno lightly on the forehead and watches the sheets scatter away from him. “I’ll hear you out,” he offers. Mizuno’s throat bobs as he begins to speak, rattling through a clearly pre-rehearsed introduction before stumbling over the exposition, as expected. His beer sits untouched beside him; a couple of times he threatens to topple it with his hand gestures. _Always be aware of your environment_ , the self-proclaimed experts always say. _Measure your body language to the size of your ambitions_.

Mizuno clearly hasn’t done his homework. Tonooka cuts him off with questions just to watch his earnest smile falter and marvels again that such a foolish, honest child has managed to hold his attention for this long.

“What do you think?”

The words snap Tonooka out of his daze. In his surprise, he ends up looking at things that shouldn’t matter – things like Mizuno’s thick brown eyelashes, or the light spilling over his cheekbones. “It has promise,” he says, careful to keep his voice neutral.

The praise still makes Mizuno brighten like a flower opening up to the sun; he is so openly eager for approval that Tonooka has to look away for fear his composure will drown in that plea. For a moment he thinks of Chiga’s eyes, sliding past him as if he were indistinguishable from the hallway around him, and he remembers staring at himself in the mirror after, disgusted by his carefully made-up mask of a face. For all Chiga tried to distance himself from the rest of the class, he ended up just like them – quick to turn; quick to sell his stocks the instant they took a turn for the worse.

Tonooka had thought their friendship might have afforded him at least one second chance.

 

*

 

Chance is like a mirage, Tonooka learns, present only in the eye of the beholder; all an audience sees is failure or success, with a predilection toward the former. Thankfully, success is a matter of time, and for all the bitter tears Chiga cost him in high school, Tonooka quite likes the adults they have become.

He doesn’t plan on staying long. Half of him is already planning what he’ll do if things go south here; he’s frustrated by Tachibana’s blanket refusal of his plan, and he can’t help darting glances at Hoshii’s blank expression under the dimming lights. It won’t be disastrous, he reasons with himself, thinking of all the lunch breaks he’s skipped to pull this project together. He’d anticipated Hoshii’s ambivalence, and he has a decent grasp of how the performance tonight is likely to pan out. If everything goes according to script, they’ll receive generally positive feedback and Hoshii will only reluctantly repeat his apology, so it shouldn’t cause too much internal drama when Tonooka later leaks taruchi’s identity through an anon board.

He’s not expecting Chiga to take a seat centre-stage before the play starts. He’s even more surprised to hear the words that flow from Chiga’s mouth, smooth and lilting, cloaked in a deceptively airy tone that’s impossible to link with the broken screaming and dark mutterings of his online persona. When Chiga looks into the audience, his gaze is earnest, imploring – this is something Tonooka hasn’t had the privilege of seeing for a long time.

It stings, as much as he tells himself he’s over it. Listening to taruchi’s livestreams, Tonooka is still able to cling to some last remnants of familiarity because he recognises many of the stories told; he can deduce the thoughts underlying the awkward rhythm of Chiga’s voice. It gives him an advantage over the other listeners, destined to fall prey to the gleeful silence that precedes one of Chiga’s game-changing moves. Tonooka has an unfinished save file on one of his older game cartridges, a forgotten battle he doubts they’ll ever see the outcome of. Even so, he refuses to delete it. As long as he hasn’t lost, their game’s not over.

It was Chiga who decided they were done. The two of them had rarely agreed on the things that mattered.

Still, he looks away when Chiga’s gaze sweeps over his seating area, waits until Chiga pauses for breath before he ventures up again, and as he does his eyes catch on a small figure on the other side of the audience.

What is the heir to MIZUNO Enterprises doing here?

Tonooka is well-aware that MANKAI Company has a number of connections to influential figures in the entertainment world – a rather surprising number, for a theatre of its size. It’s home to Sumeragi Tenma and the Usui child, and Arisugawa Homare’s books are regularly featured in bookstore shopfronts. The Mizuno heir is still a surprising one to see. Tonooka has trawled his profile in the past, idly considering the merits of forming a working relationship, but the kid is a couple of years younger, and well-shielded. The new wave at End Links still includes those hired around the same time as Tonooka; he doesn’t yet have the reach to connect the name to anything more than a couple of talent agencies they’d discussed using for X.

Chiga’s speech concludes before Tonooka can ponder the matter further, and the blaring horn that marks the start of the play is followed by the distinct sound of noses being blown. As the lights go up, Tonooka finds himself unwillingly drawn into a script that fills his ears with the clang of sword against shield, the sour chill of twisted magic gripping at his core. This is the game he stakes his livelihood on; these are the foundations he has etched his name into.

This is KniRoun, the world that captivated him in his childhood and never let go.

 

*

 

He knows before the play is over that he won’t be spreading rumours on 5ch after all. The relief that washes over him is unexpected – it seems he’s more sentimental than he’d thought. Chiga doesn’t see him during the curtain call, but the man playing Gawain sends him a small smirk just before the bow. Instinct tells Tonooka to retreat for now, so he smiles back blandly and lets his gaze skitter away to the seat he’s still a little curious about.

One look tells him everything he needs to know. The abject longing on Mizuno’s face makes it clear he’s not here on business; Tonooka follows his gaze to the softly-smiling Merlin, waving both hands to the audience. The playwright, Tonooka remembers. The one Hoshii had liked from the start. Tonooka had thought him plain at first sight. He wonders how a person like that could have reached the MIZUNO heir. A family friend, perhaps – but Tonooka’s background check hadn’t turned up any useful leads. He remains distracted throughout Hoshii’s enthusiastic review of the performance, which is the only reason he notices Mizuno slipping out the same way as the rest of the crowd.

“I’m going back first,” he murmurs, accidentally cutting Hoshii off in the middle of a sentence. Luckily, his boss doesn’t seem to notice; he’s too enraptured by his experience to do more than wave him off and tailgate Tachibana backstage. Keeping his eyes fixed on Mizuno’s retreating back, Tonooka hurries out to the foyer and positions himself en-route to the exit.  “It’s Mizuno, right? Mizuno Kaya?”

Mizuno startles, expression wavering under Tonooka’s artificially wide eyes. “I’m sorry, have we…?”

“Tonooka Takumi. I work at End Links.”

It’s hard to make himself heard over the chatter surrounding them, but Mizuno accepts the proffered business card after a pause. “Thank you very much,” he says, shifting on his feet, “but I’m still not sure where – ”

Tonooka cuts him off before he can start to get suspicious. “I don’t mean to talk business when you’re here for entertainment, but we’ve had good experiences working with your company before. If you’re amenable to it, I’d love to discuss our current project with you over dinner sometime.”

“Thank you,” Mizuno says again, still looking utterly confused by the situation. This is a little surprising; it’s like he’s never had anyone canvass him before, even though his name alone should have made him the constant target of ambitious youngsters hoping to break into the entertainment industry. “I’m sorry, I’m in a bit of a rush right now, but this is my card too – if you send me more details I’ll be sure to have a look later.” His eyes keep darting to the side, as if he’s being chased, and once again Tonooka’s mind fills with the image of that young playwright. He’d be about the same age as Mizuno, if Tonooka is remembering correctly.

Mizuno bows once more, brushing past a fraction too forcefully. He’s clumsy, despite his elegant presentation, and Tonooka surveys the crowd around one last time for a glimpse of what could have made the other man so anxious before giving up and stepping out into the evening air. He shivers at the sudden chill, the evening casting a muffled cloak over the lively chatter still going on inside. Suddenly, he’s exhausted. The performance went well, but tomorrow he’ll have to polish his proposals and start liaising with the PR team again, and eventually he’s going to have to follow up on that email he sent to a potential sponsor which still hasn’t returned a reply.

It’s hard work, this – but he does love it. A smile curls across his lips, and he turns back to the theatre in a moment of pure gratitude. Chiga exceeded his expectations tonight, with that speech. He’d always been full of surprises.

“…Ugh.”

_Ah_ , Tonooka thinks, heaving a silent sigh. _I shouldn’t have looked back_.

“You really are here.” Chiga looks disappointed, as if Tonooka’s mere presence tonight is a burden to him.

The warm feeling that had been spreading through Tonooka’s chest turns to ice at once. “Your speech tonight was good,” he ventures, after a short silence. The disappointment remains fixed on Chiga’s face, and Tonooka is caught with the intense desire to apologize. “Listen, about high school, I – ”

“Ahh, you don’t have to.” Chiga waves him off carelessly, his expression turning bland. Tonooka hates the way it looks on him, hates the way it makes him feel small and worthless and insignificant. “I really don’t care.”

Anger. Tonooka finds the emotion easily, pulling it up from the wells of his memory with only slight effort. He’d known it already. If Chiga had cared, he wouldn’t have –

He doesn’t hear his own words. His natural conversational skills are enough to carry the conversation, keeping it light and teasing, holding back his verbal jabs to only the points of his emotion. It’s infuriating that Chiga doesn’t have to do the same – that Chiga speaks to him like he has nothing to hide. He whines about Tonooka working at End Links as if they’re still close and teases him like he’s been forgiven, but unless he takes the initiative to reach out, Chiga will never again acknowledge that Tonooka exists. He’s lost the desire to apologize, since they won’t get him anywhere even if he does, but he still wants to hit back _somehow_.

He tells Chiga about watching his streams, even though Chiga doesn’t care. If he doesn’t, he’ll hold on forever. There’s a part of him still that’s standing bereft in the corridor, watching his investments crash through the floor without understanding why. For that child – for the part of him that still cares – he tells Chiga why he’s grateful they fell out.

Life offers an endless number of choices; it’s the ones they take which define them. He’d do it all over again if he could, because a person who’d give up on him that easily isn’t someone he can afford to have around. He tells Chiga that, too, in more mannerly words.

Chiga huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “You do put on a good front, don’t you.”

It’s a mild echo of something Tonooka had said earlier, and just as empty. Neither of them care to look beyond those ornamental masks any longer.

When he next visits his parents, he’ll clean out his old consoles. Maybe he’ll send one to MANKAI Theatre anonymously. Their scriptwriter seems like the kind of person to appreciate that sort of unsolved mystery.

 

*

 

Under the gentle caress of good drink, Tonooka can admit that maybe, _maybe_ , he’s not quite as honest with himself as he pretends to be. The rational part of his brain struggles to assure him that he’s kept to all the usual formalities, but at least Mizuno is still perched uncomfortably on the bar stool, looking rather like their beta testers do when they pass level 5 without levelling enough and end up getting trampled by a sheep.

He’d meant to stop at three drinks. Mizuno had come off as a bit of a lightweight, but even though his cheeks glow pink his speech hasn’t started to slur. Rather, he seems to have found the balance where his inhibitions are lowered just enough to make him bold. “We’re very committed to supporting start-ups,” he tells Tonooka. “Of course, money goes nowhere without talent, but you’d be amazed at what money can do for a mind that knows what to do with it.”

Tonooka’s control is slipping away from him like the glass under his fingers. “Are you talking about Merlin’s actor?” It takes him a moment to recall the name. “Minagi, wasn’t it?”

The smile drops from Mizuno’s face. He fumbles for his serviette, tripping over his words for the first time since the alcohol started to kick in. “He’s very talented, isn’t he? They’re sure to go places, with his scripts. I wish they’d reconsider our sponsorship offer.” He bites his lip. “Well, I can’t say I don’t understand…”

None of this means anything to Tonooka. “How did you meet?” he presses, hungry for a glimpse of the longing he’d seen on Mizuno’s face that night. “How did you lose him?”

When Tonooka wakes up tomorrow, he’ll berate himself for this travesty of a social interaction. Chiga posted a video over the weekend, a speedrun of Kniroun VI with NEO reading out user comments along the way. He’d sounded happy, even as he lamented the rising inflation and current shortage of Burnt Orc Skin Toast. It made Tonooka recall seeing him with their classmate, letting his mask lapse without a thought, then trying to drag Tonooka into the conversation as if Tonooka’s carefully-crafted image was as cheap as his own. The first time he’d watched one of taruchi’s videos, it had given him the same feeling.

It’s not that Tonooka doesn’t have friends. He has his work buddies and his drinking buddies and a solid crew to call when he wants to run a dungeon. There’s no shortage of nerds at End Links; a healthy love of the game is considered an asset. As a student, he hadn’t dared dream a job like this could be his.

This, too, he owes to Chiga – Chiga, who keeps carving out homes for himself in places that Tonooka had deemed uninhabitable; who chose to move on instead of rebuild and never regretted it; who gave up first, and proved his decision right.

Mizuno has fallen back into a drowsy silence, staring at Tonooka from under his fringe. “He still considers me a friend,” he says at last. “That’s the sort of person he is.”

Tonooka calls for another drink. He wonders what Mizuno sees – a stark departure from the man who first greeted him, surely. He doesn’t need a mirror to know his face is flushed and damp. His own fringe sticks to his eyelids. “A good person, then. He looked it.”

“He was always kind,” Mizuno agrees. “He thinks it was his fault – I let him think that. I wasn’t often allowed to indulge in child’s play, and I was sheltered by my parents; they feared the other children would try to extort me somehow. Still, they wouldn’t have enrolled me in a regular school if they didn’t want me to connect with the kids there. Talent blooms in unexpected places, after all.”

The line sounds rehearsed; Tonooka thinks he recognises it from a function he’d attended some time ago. The background noise washes over them in the sudden pause; Tonooka isn’t sure whether Mizuno is searching for words, or whether he has simply lost his train of thought. Perhaps he has become hesitant to tell Tonooka this story.

This is the only option Tonooka cannot allow. “It wasn’t him.”

“No.” Mizuno tips his head forward, hunching over his glass. “It was the way I said it.”

Tonooka thinks about high school, about words that split hearts like bombshells when they fell. He doesn’t ask.

A plate of karaage makes better conversation than two drunk businessmen. Tonooka calls for another beer while Mizuno burns his tongue on the hot chicken, and even though they’re getting to the stage where neither of them will remember this conversation in the morning, he has the sneaking suspicion that might be for the best. Mizuno pokes at Tonooka’s forearm with one of the toothpicks used to skewer the karaage and Tonooka doesn’t even flinch. “So?” asks Mizuno, as if there was a topic to be continued. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

Mizuno scrunches his nose. Tonooka revisits his assessment that Mizuno grows bolder under the influence of alcohol and suddenly feels a little uncomfortable. “That’s what I’m asking,” Mizuno says, impatient. “Who did you lose?”

Lose?

“I’m going to win,” Tonooka assures him. “He’s in the lead right now, but I’ll overtake him before the finish.”

_Pathetic_. Tonooka can admit that in his own mind, at least. When it comes to Chiga, he’s always at a loss for what to do. Looking over at Mizuno, whose brows are furrowed in confusion, Tonooka decides that this sort of dynamic suits him much better.

 

*

 

Tonooka wakes up with throbbing headache and, unfortunately, an intact recollection of the previous night’s events. He checks his phone out of habit and is surprised to see a message from Mizuno amidst the mix of company spam and group LIME chats.

_M_KAYA: Thank you for yesterday. I have your coat. Could I return it over lunch sometime at your convenience?_

He flicks back to the memory of Mizuno wrestling his coat away from him after spilling beer on it, claiming he couldn’t possibly allow Tonooka to take financial responsibility for Mizuno’s own mistake. _You’d make a good sugar daddy,_ Tonooka had said, his brain-to-mouth filter truly in tatters by then, so he’s just thankful Mizuno isn’t threatening to sue him for verbal harassment.

_ta93: Thanks for the message. That sounds fine – I have a place in mind, unless you have any food preferences. Thu 12pm?_

They go for lunch. Then they go for drinks, and for lunch again, and for dinner at a new Italian place Tonooka’s desk mate recommends to him. Sober, Mizuno is easy to handle; he is unfailingly polite, if slightly awkward, and there are things he is startlingly naïve about, which makes him more gullible than the people Tonooka is used to being around. He blushes when praised. His parents believe both in working hard and making the most of one’s connections, but they can’t help coddling him, so provided he copes with what they ask of him they support his more ambitious ventures – like funding overseas trips for promising new theatre troupes.

(“You’re so obvious,” Tonooka laughs, when he hears the story. “I hope you at least got a nice thank-you out of it.”

“Minagi-sensei is too busy to reply individually to all his fanmail,” Mizuno says stiffly. “He needs to focus on his scripts. I wish they’d let me at least get him a proper chair to work in…I wonder whether they’ll accept it if I leave it outside with a note…”

He doesn’t hide the wistful tone in his voice, so Tonooka doesn’t point it out.)

Mizuno doesn’t game – his parents didn’t allow that sort of idle time-wasting – but he has the makings of an addict, so Tonooka takes him to a games arcade under the guise of scoping out the landscape for a KniRoun X collaboration. “I’m in line for a promotion,” he says airily, keeping his tone light. “I might need to contact you for some of your sound engineers.”

“It’s not my department, but I can ask around for you.” Mizuno sounds more eager to help than Tonooka had anticipated; he thinks he might understand why his parents are so protective of him. A few seconds late, Mizuno’s eyes widen. “Ah, congratulations!”

“It hasn’t been decided yet,” Tonooka says, though he’s already received the unofficial thumbs up from his superior. He’s worked too hard over the past few months _not_ to get promoted, in his own humble opinion, but Mizuno’s words still sit warm in his chest.

There’s only a short line for the Sound VortX machines, so Tonooka steers Mizuno in front of one and places his hands over the buttons, keeping them locked in place even as Mizuno struggles to free himself from Tonooka’s hold. “I’ve never played this before,” he protests.

“I’ll handle the dials,” Tonooka tells him. “You just tap when you see a white bar.”

Mizuno’s doesn’t miss a single note. “I was really nervous,” he complains after, wiping his hands on his jeans. “It all went so fast.”

Tonooka eyes those hands critically. Mizuno’s fingers are slender, now that he’s looking; pretty, even. “Did you ever play the piano?”

“I took lessons through school. Long enough to pass all my exams, and now I just play for fun.”

Tonooka laughs. “Me too. Typical, isn’t it?”

It strikes him that there are similarities in their backgrounds, though Mizuno’s is far more elect. They both understand status; they both understand what it means to carry and uphold expectations. If it had been Mizuno instead of Chiga, Tonooka wonders – but he’s always been practical, so there’s no point thinking about that now. He suspects Mizuno is the more sentimental type, anyway.

Their tour of the arcade lasts long enough to bring them to dinner hours, which was admittedly part of Tonooka’s original plan. It’s a Saturday, so he’s hoping to convince Mizuno to join him for drinks after, too. He doubts he’ll be refused; it’s become a pattern of sorts for them to drag out their meetings. “I don’t like what this says about my social life,” he says, “but if this keeps up, I’m going to have to start calling you one of my closer friends.”

Mizuno’s lips quiver, like he’s unsure whether to laugh it off or not. After a moment, he takes another bite of pasta, washing it down with a mouthful of wine. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” he says, and Tonooka’s heart drops before he can stop to think about what that means. “I don’t have a very good record with those.”

Tonooka hadn’t asked. Maybe that had been a mistake. He eyes Mizuno’s complexion – rose red, but not deeply flushed; his words are still guarded by a slight hesitance. “I don’t like being compared to failures,” he says coolly.

Mizuno’s eyes flash. “I’d appreciate if you kept that opinion to yourself.”

“Well, what is he then?” Tonooka keeps goading, watching with vicious satisfaction as Mizuno drains his glass as an anger reflex without even noticing. “Only an idiot would call what you have a friendship.”

“You don’t even _know_ him,” Mizuno starts. His voice catches when he notes the slight dip in conversation around them. Slowly, he sinks back into his seat. “You’re right, though. Or, well…You’re not wrong, but he’s not an idiot.”

His cheeks are darker now – whether it’s from the wine or the outrage, it’s enough. Tonooka catches his sleeve. “Come over,” he says, letting his fingers curl around Mizuno’s wrist. “I’ll listen.”

He still doesn’t have the courage to ask.

 

*

 

“He doesn’t know.”

This is the first thing Mizuno says, when Tonooka has sat them down with blankets, tissues, and a few cases of beer.

“Then tell him.” It’s all so _trivial_ , now that they’re here and Minagi isn’t, and Chiga is probably off saving Gwen from Merlin for the thousandth time.

“I can’t.” Mizuno senses Tonooka’s frustration and puts his hand up to keep him silent. “They knew I was friends with him. His brother had a birthday party…We performed one of his scripts for it, and I promised I’d do another play with him the next month. It’s still one of my fondest memories.”

The same dark and ugly thing that had reared its head when he’d seen Chiga speaking with their classmates starts to stir in Tonooka’s chest again. If he had a Gwen to help him, maybe he’d be able to keep it smothered.

“What do you do when you’re a kid and you’ve just had the time of your life?” Mizuno laughs and spreads out his hands helplessly. “You go home and tell your parents all about it, of course. I didn’t even consider keeping it a secret.”

“That’s because you’re terrible when it comes to that sort of thing,” Tonooka says. He’s sick of this story already. He takes one of Mizuno’s outstretched hands and tugs it closer so he can trace circles with his thumb into Mizuno’s palm; it’s important to him, for some reason, that Mizuno lets him.

A soft laugh escapes Mizuno’s lips. “That might be true. Well – they’d have found out eventually. It’s one thing for your son to come home from his friend’s house blabbering away about them and another thing completely when that friend is also male.”

Unconsciously, Tonooka tightens his grip on Mizuno’s hand. He doesn’t think Mizuno will shake him off, but the irrational, teenaged part of him still remembers calling after Chiga and not being able to keep him.

“He still thinks it’s because I couldn’t keep our promise. He imagines I’ll sort out my guilt eventually; if we met, he’d probably start some speech about how it wasn’t like that – it wasn’t my fault.” Mizuno shakes his head. “It was my fault. It _was_ like that – so I can’t go back and face him…not even now.”

Tonooka hadn’t wanted to know.

He hadn’t wanted to ask, because Mizuno would answer. That’s the sort of relationship they’ve had, ever since Tonooka held out a business card with the flimsiest precursor in the world and Mizuno accepted it without complaint.

He hadn’t wanted to ask, because hearing this makes him want to tell the truth too.

“Then that makes two of us,” he says, casual as the weather.

Mizuno looks to him, eyes wide and glassy. _He’s beautiful_ , Tonooka thinks, his mind falling apart under that wondrous stare. He keeps his thumb on Mizuno’s palm, his other hand on his can, and leans in until he can taste the sickly scent of alcohol on both their breaths.

“I sent him a letter,” confesses Mizuno, his voice a low murmur into the space between them. “He came after me, when he found out I was in the audience, but I couldn’t face him, because he didn’t know.”

Tonooka considers what it must be like to have a friend who cares enough to chase after you. He’d been the one chasing, once – too little, too late, and he wonders whether Mizuno would have scorned him too. Perhaps there’s nobody in the world who would have dealt out the revenge he wanted rather than the abandonment he received.

He retreats. A slight furrow appears in Mizuno’s brow at that, but there are things Mizuno doesn’t know either. _Yet_ , his mind supplies, along with an echo of his earlier words. _Then tell him._

Mizuno was right. There are some things that are better off left unsaid.

Tonooka tells him something else instead. “It was a stupid idea,” he starts, watching the furrow in Mizuno’s brow deepen at the sudden change of subject. “He was going to expose us both just because he’d thought he’d found someone else who shared his interests. As long as he had someone – anyone – suddenly I was replaceable.” His choice of wording is deliberately misleading. “I thought, _let’s do it, then_. I’d throw him under the bus so he’d do the same for me, and then we’d both be on the same level again. Alone, this time.”

He stops looking at Mizuno, but he doesn’t let go of his hand.

“He couldn’t even spare the effort to bring me down with him. Awful, isn’t it?”

Tonooka is talking about himself as much as he is Chiga – about the ugly possessiveness in his heart and the way he’s carried this with him for the whole of his adult life.

“I won’t chase after you,” he warns, gaze drifting back to Mizuno. For the first time, he can’t read the expression on the other man’s face, but he doesn’t spend too much longer trying; chasing isn’t worth the effort for someone with his outlook on life.

Mizuno’s eyes soften. “I won’t either,” he promises, and presses a kiss to Tonooka’s fingertips, locked around his hand.

Tonooka’s ears are ringing; he feels relieved and disappointed all at once, caught up in the memory of Chiga laughing, curled up on pillows in Tonooka’s room. “Then we agree that this is a bad idea.”

“You sell yourself too short,” Mizuno parries, with a fond look that makes Tonooka want to press him to the floor and strangle the kindness out of him. “I just don’t think I’ll need to.”

“I’ve been using you for your connections,” Tonooka blurts out. He’s only started doing it recently, when he’s had genuine reason to; the paranoid part of him worries that Mizuno’s family will hire PIs to hunt him down and ascertain his true motives – which, in hindsight, might be slightly disastrous considering the position they’re in now.

Mizuno grins; his cheeks are the perfect shade of red that takes him out of his reserved shell and makes him bold. “My parents might approve of that if it ended up working to both our benefits.” He pulls Tonooka close again, whispers into the shell of his ear. “Want to know the real difference between you and Tsuzuru-kun?”

This is a chance. Tonooka knows it with absolute certainty, the same way he knows Mizuno’s preferred cologne, and what time he gets off work on Fridays, and what it means when he starts a message with _Apologies for disturbing you during your busy day_. “I know,” he says, praying the flush from the beer will hide the new one spreading across his face now. “I know, okay?”

It’s his complete loss.

Tonooka thinks he can live with that, this time.


End file.
